First,The Good News, because there is much of it today:

• Tanker contract WIN! Tail between its legs, Northrop Grumman backs away from bidding for new Air Force refueling tanker contract, leaving Boeing the sole bidder for the project.
• No, really, it was the one armed-man who did it! This time, police captured him at a Magnolia house party without even making Harrison Ford jump off of anything, which is kind of disappointing.
• After years of cleanup work, shellfish from nearby Port Susan have been given the OK for human consumption for the first time in over two decades.
• Seattle will be one of five markets to get an early test of the all-electric Nissan Leaf starting in April.
• King County Executive Dow Constantine announced what seems like an eminently reasonable plan to trim the fat from the county budget and close a $95 million gap.
• No need to worry about an armed man roaming the streets near Seward Park. Turns out the shooting victim just accidentally shot himself and didn’t want to admit it to the cops, because that would be totally embarassing! Also, because he is a felon.

But don’t get too giddy, now. There remains, as always, The Bad News:

• There are worse backup quarterbacks to have than Seneca Wallace, especially when your starters arm is held on with duct tape and happy thoughts. But the Seahawks won’t have Wallace to kick around anymore, dealing him to the Cleveland Browns. Best of luck, Seneca.
• An Enumclaw woman has been charged with animal cruelty after police and animal control officers remove dozens of animals, some starving, others already dead, from her property.
• A physical therapist at Swedish Medical Center has been charged with taking indecent liberties following allegations that he physically abused two patients under his care.

Written by scott

Hey Bro, I know you ladies were thrilled at my Top 9 Things to NOT to do While Stoned, so I decided to do the opposite. Thats right, Top 9 Things to Do WHILE Stoned!

After the close of trading in U.S. stock markets on Tuesday, Elliott Associates, L.P., a hedge fund with a significant position in shares of Novell, placed an unsolicited offer to buy the company for $2 billion. Its offer of $5.75 per share in cash is well above Novell’s closing price today of $4.75 per share, and caused Novell’s shares to rise above $6 in after hours trading. The offer places a high valuation on Novell, and the troubled company will have to consider it very carefully.

According to Elliott Associates L.P.’s offer letter:

"Based on our detailed review of the Company’s publicly available information and our substantial knowledge of the software industry, we are pleased to submit this proposal to acquire all of the shares of common stock of Novell for a cash price of $5.75 per share.  This price represents a premium of 49% over the Company’s current enterprise value and 77% over the Company’s 90-day volume-weighted average enterprise value."

It continues:

"Over the past several years, the Company has attempted to diversify away from its legacy division with a series of acquisitions and changes in strategic focus that have largely been unsuccessful.  As a result, we believe the Company’s stock has meaningfully underperformed all relevant indices and peers."

While the $2 billion offer may seem high at first glance, it’s worth remembering that Novell has nearly $1 billion in cash, and reported $220 million of revenues in its most recent quarter. We’ve made the point before that with Sun Microsystems under the wing of Oracle now, Novell and Red Hat remain the only large, publicly traded U.S. companies focused almost entirely on open source software. We’ve also noted that the large cash positions that both Red Hat and Novell have make them prime acquisition targets (although rises in Red Hat’s stock price have made it less attractive).

If Novell accepts the new offer, it will no longer be an independent company, leaving only Red Hat among big publicly traded firms to focus on open source. Without a doubt, Novell’s long-suffering shareholders will call for the offer to be taken seriously. Novell officials have yet to comment, but Elliott Associates L.P.’s offer is high enough that a shakeup could be imminent.

Image courtesy of Flickr user King76.

Last month, we reported that Facebook was transitioning from application notifications to e-mail notices. Today, the Facebook Developer blog has added further information about this new method and announced that as of March 1, 2010, app notifications will be discontinued.

For users who hate being bombarded by app notifications in Facebook, this is good news — just don’t expect notifications to disappear altogether.

Instead of using universal notifications, developers can now choose from a number of methods to communicate changes or updates to users. Facebook recommends using either counters, dashboard news notices or sending users e-mail messages (assuming they have agreed to e-mail opt-ins).

Counters, for all intents and purposes, will be just like notifications as they currently exist, except they will be specific to each individual app. If your app is bookmarked in your Facebook page, a counter indicating the number of notices you have from an app.

Facebook has also created a page of best practices for developers communicating with users.

What do you think about the deprecation of app notifications? Let us know in the comments!

Tags: app notifications, developers, facebook, web apps

Read more of this story at Slashdot.